Through the Soldier's Eyes
by Little Revolutionist Ace
Summary: Jehan's death from the point of view of an OC guard.


Smoke, dust, shots, the thunder of the cannon that seems almost distant though it is only a few steps away. No birds dare sing on this street, they are too disgusted by the movements of these students against our king. These students, these insurrectionists- traitors. Surely they must be aware of the futility of their exercise. Admittedly it does give the National Guard target practice, but to try and rebel against Louis Philippe the First? Do they honestly think no strategies were put into place after the French Revolution? That the powers of France and her loyal infantry will not crush the-

We have caught a traitor.

A chance to see one of the people who dares commit the worst of crimes. I was absent in eighteen thirty, still too young to have been in service, but I had heard stories of the forces turning, France's own men turning traitors, but I can't help but laugh at the thought of these boys hoping for that eventuality. It may be wildly inappropriate at the barricades to laughs, but I doubt anyone would hear.

I can see him now, the boy. Boy is certainly the right word, he can't be older than eighteen. But he is fighting without a thought to his own life. His hair, in a long fashion is tossing as he struggles in the grip of my comrades. So much larger than this petit thing that looks like his death would be of Romantic consumption, not execution upon the barricades, another nameless body for the mass grave though he is too young! I had never imagined... a traitor... we hadn't seen them before, just heard, and sometimes felt their shots, but... this boy who doesn't even have a name, or sight now his eyes are bandaged.

Vive le republique!

A voice, unexpected in the silence that has fallen from the other side of the barricades. An echo of his voice rings around this street. All seem struck dumb by him.

They can't do this, but the men are pushing him against the stone front of the building and I can't see the name because the smoke hasn't dissipated and why does it matter when they're executing a child?

There is a cry from the barricades, one of his comrades. Pain and desperation as if the boy might answer to the call of Ami fidele? . This boy was a faithful friend to someone, he had a father, a mother. Maybe even a wife.

This is the same for everyone upon this barricade. The boy turns his head, his sightless eyes searching past the material over his face, though he cannot see his companions.

A cry is torn from his throat, deep, coarse, a frightening irregularity to how he looks. His voice should be low, unhurried, speaking of the Supreme or reciting Keats, enraptured in the words that suit his face, his manner. I shall remember this call and the gunshots that echoed it. The juxtaposition of 'vive l'avenir' and the gunshot is almost physically painful. Long live the future, echoed by what brought this boy's future to such a premature end.

The boy is on the ground, crushed beneath the framework he was trying to dismantle, just another in the long list of people we have killed today, that we will kill tomorrow and that the National Guard

will kill in the future.

I wonder if we will go to hell for this... Thou shalt not kill and all. Because this boy-man-terrorist-freedom fighter... this ami fidele will have people that will miss him, that will mourn that he does not come home, who will despair for their child's early end.

I know the realisation has come too late, it has come with with stench of blood, sharp and metallic, but I do not want to be here. I glance over and see the people who have murdered the personification of innocence wear the same uniform as I. Blue, white and red adorns us, a parody of the tricolour that represents the country both of our divisions are fighting for. The black gunpowder on my hands suddenly seems to weigh more than mercury and my gun falls to the ground, the sharp crack attracting no attention but my own in the noise that reigns after the boy's death.

Smoke, dust, shots, the metallic stench permeating the air. No birds dare sing on this street, they are too horrified at the death of innocence, at this death of this boy's future. The blue of the sky is mingled with the white smoke of the cannon while the red of the child's blood paints the paving stones. Tricolour. 


End file.
